Trivia and Dissertations

January 4th is National Trivia Day. Here’s some fun and interesting dissertation trivia…

• The average time to earn a doctoral degree in the social sciences is 7.8 years. With coursework typically requiring 2-3 years, a typical student will spend 5-6 years completing his or her dissertation.
• Worldwide, less than 0.716% of the population earn research-based doctoral degrees.
• Only 56% of doctoral students in the social sciences successfully earn their doctoral degrees.
• Doctoral attrition occurs during coursework at roughly 3 times the rate of incidence during the dissertation phase.
• The average business doctoral student invests roughly $20,000/yr in tuition. The average psychology doctoral student pays approximately $15,000/yr, and the average Ed.D. costs more than $21,000/yr.
• Whether they graduate or not, the typical doctoral student spends nearly $113,000 on his or her education, much of it financed via student loans.
• The median income for a Ph.D is $14,768 higher than the median income for a college graduate.
• Assuming all tuition is financed with student loans at 5% and that all additional income is used to repay said loans, the typical doctoral education requires 14 years to net a positive financial return.

And now for something completely different…

• There are 293 ways to make change for a U.S. dollar.
• 40 million years ago, penguins stood 6 feet tall.
• 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321.
• Sarcasm has been found to promote creative thinking.
• Ravens held in captivity can learn to talk better than parrots, seriously.
• Bacon was used to make explosives during WWII, again, seriously.
• Netflix was conceived in response to a $40 late fee for a VHS copy of Apollo 13.
• The first female member of Congress was elected four years before women won the right to vote.
• Abraham Lincoln’s son, Robert, was saved from a railroad accident by John Wilkes Booth’s brother, Edwin, one or two years before Booth assasinated Lincoln!
• Think your committe’s tough? The design for the 50-star US flag was conceived by a high school student for a class project. his teacher gave him a B-. But, hey, passing is done for a dissertation!
• Think your committe is dogmatic? The Indiana state legislature once tried to legally define the value of pi as 3.2. Irrational people vs. irrational numbers!

Did you know that cutting just one year off your time to graduation can reduce the time to a net positive financial return by more than 3 years? How would you like to slash at least a year or two off of your dissertation?

Click here to schedule a quick, 15-minute chat with me to see if you’re a good fit for our Fast Track Your Dissertation Coaching Program. If you are, then I’ll invite you to join the fastest group of dissertation students out there and help you to reach graduation a good year or two faster than you would on your own.